Time Manipulation & Cinematic Reality: Christopher Nolan's Filmography

One needn't watch the entirety of Christopher Nolan's filmography to get an idea of what his filmmaking method is. Although he has adapted his execution methods as he's gained more experience and funding over the years, the key elements are consistently the same. He loves to tell his plots out of sequence, in reverse, backwards and forwards simultaneously, and often include some bit of information at the end to generate multiple discussions about everything that came before. The cinematography is picturesque, a mix of establishing shots, long shots, close-ups, and low-angle/high-angle shots that are all done with incredible depth of field. Characters and character dialogue are tied to some part of the human experience or human nature and used in philosophical stories about ethics and moral choice. And, finally, the overall presentation of the film will be as close to reality as possible. Or, as Nolan himself has coined the phrase, a cinematic reality.

It's the mix of all these components that has made me a dedicated follower of Christopher Nolan's work over the many years I have written about film. If not necessarily my main influence for becoming a filmmaker, he has become my favorite director due to the nature of his stories and how he brings them to the screen. As someone who aims to write stories infused with topics of belief and morality and bring them to the screen with the utmost passion and detail, Nolan attracting mass audiences and still being able to challenge their pre-conceptions of mainstream filmmaking has been an inspiration. The purpose of this post today is my effort to celebrate his filmography, highlight which of his films I enjoy most, and share thoughts of how his films have impacted me both personally and professionally.

"Following"

Having summarized Christopher Nolan's directing style, it's easier to determine which of his films encapsulate that style most. His debut film, "Following," has some of these qualities.

It's Nolan's shortest work by far, running at a swift 70 minutes, but the magic trick of "Following" is that he packs it with many themes and narrative details to make you feel as though you're getting your fill. Many of these details have become commonplace in his filmography. With a couple of crooks as the main characters, we learn through their perspectives about people, their personalities, and how to recognize them through their "box," their collection of possessions that tell people who they are without words. Although they are afforded a major assist from the screenplay, actors Jeremy Theobald and Alex Haw play their roles well, creating an interesting chemistry between them that might appear friendly if their relationship didn't include so much subterfuge.

Being a self-financed and relatively inexpensive project from Nolan, "Following" doesn't have the larger scale qualities of his later films. It's hardly flashy or action-packed - the only fight scene in here is hardly of the same caliber of what Nolan would later give us. Nevertheless, for me, this is Nolan's most relatable film in terms of its craft. The props and objects that fill the screen beyond the actors make "Following" feel personal and intimate. I would not be surprised if many of the props and background decor in the production design were Nolan's personal things at the time. Items and objects like film posters for "Casablanca" and "Jackie Brown," a typewriter, and a Batman sticker on a door make the film feel like Nolan using his limited resources to make this film feel real and lived-in. Although special effects have proven a great tool, it was always in service of the story and its characters. In a film where the main character is taught to recognize a person through their living space and personal items, "Following" gives the audience a real sense of who Nolan is using these small details.

The ending of "Following," in which "The Young Man" has been set-up the entire film to take the fall for Cobb's crimes, was a twist that changes how you perceive everything that came before. The film leads you to this point where even when you were beginning to get ahead, much like the main character, you find out that you were always several steps behind the truth. This is another common feature in some of Nolan's other films and completes the idea that "Following" is a well-paced and rather subtle introduction to Nolan's narrative and stylistic preferences.

"Memento"

Similar to "Following," the story of "Memento" plays with narrative unfolding. This time, even more so than his previous film, Nolan designs it to be difficult to piece together until the end. Where "Following" was all in black-and-white, "Memento" is both in black-and-white and color. In "Memento," the story as a whole is that the sequences in black-and-white happen timeline-wise prior to the sequences in color, although the film orders them in a way in which they are always interchanged. Each color segment is followed by a black-and-white sequence, and that cycle repeats until the film's end. This method is used to convey the tragedy of the main character's plight.

Guy Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, a man with anterograde amnesia and who also loses his short-term memory every fifteen minutes. He lives his life through an intricate system of polaroid photographs of people he knows, his belongings, and where he's staying. He also tattoos information on his body, with the information usually pertaining to his personal investigation of his wife's murder, the last event he always remembers.

"Memento" presents the information to you in a way that reflects the life of the main character. Every time you're about to catch on, a sequence from a different time and color grading interrupts, creating this effect that feels as though you are suffering from short-term memory loss. We begin to depend on the photographs and tattoos as much as Leonard does, and this circumstance creates an intimate attachment between the audience and the character. This leads to some anxiety-inducing sequences. The best of which features Leonard needing to write information that, due to the lack of pens in the room, he forgets.

Of Nolan’s films, "Memento" makes for a more frustrating first-time watch due to the constant switching between timelines and styles, but it all contributes to the mystery. You watch the film thinking, "Where is all this going? What is the point of all this?" And then the final puzzle piece is revealed, which is that Leonard's entire investigation is a side-effect of his condition and that he chooses, at least before he forgets, to assign a new perpetrator to his wife's murder just after he's caught the last one. All for the sake of giving his life purpose, at least in a way someone in his condition can live. That Leonard fifteen minutes from now could believe entirely different things than Leonard fifteen minutes ago is a scary notion, one that also makes him his own victim.

Many have observed that Nolan creates very cold and harsh characters in his films. I do not believe that it's entirely true, but "Memento," I feel, is where that observation is most applicable. Were it not for the reveal, Leonard might have been a fairly upstanding character. Yes, it's true he's a victim of his own condition, but he still willingly chooses his path when he becomes fully conscious of it. Then you have the few other characters, Natalie and Teddy, who are truly two-faced people who put on warm or lively personalities as a way to hide an uglier side of themselves. For this, while the many details in the film are impeccable, "Memento" is among the lesser of Nolan's films for me. It has Nolan's signature thoughtfulness, but it lacks a hopeful or inspiring touch that many of his other films possess.

"Insomnia"

Of all of Nolan's filmography, "Insomnia" is noticeably lost in the shuffle. "Following" may have that problem, too, but at least that has the distinction of being his first film. And especially for having quite the cast, including two knockout turns from Al Pacino and Robin Williams, that is a crime. It's because of the lack of discussion around "Insomnia" that I thought it'd be a lesser Nolan film, which it ultimately proved me wrong.

One of the reasons why the lack of discussion around "Insomnia" is particularly egregious is because "The Dark Knight," in many ways, owes its existence to this film. "Insomnia" is a crime drama through and through, told in a fairly straightforward manner, that has ethical discussions pertaining to the law, when it's helpful and when it's not, and the dynamic between Pacino's Detective Will Dormer and Williams' Walter Finch is similar to what Nolan later did with Batman and the Joker in that 2008 film. There are differences, to be fair. It is not like "Insomnia" and "The Dark Knight" are one in the same. But while "The Dark Knight" continually receives such acclaim, which it is deserving of, it's odd that one of its influences seems to be forgotten.

"Insomnia" is the story of Detective Will Dormer who goes with his parter to a small town in Alaska to investigate the murder of a young girl. Due to the time of year, the sun never sets in the town, which prohibits Dormer from sleeping. In spite of this, he must still pursue the young girl's murderer, Walter Finch, while maintaining secrets of his own. "Insomnia" is where Nolan's ability to give his stories epic tones shows through, thanks in no small part to the central performances and Wally Pfister's cinematography. Though it may not involve dreams within dreams, interstellar travel or Batman, "Insomnia" is just as engaging as all those films due to its two well-known stars doing something truly different.

Al Pacino has to spend the whole film increasingly uneasy and bleary and hallucinatory, a departure from his more stable, calculating characters. This is an already challenging task for an actor, but then you have the filming schedule, which is not in chronological sequence. It takes true skill for an actor to make sure their character is in the right state-of-mind in the individual scenes to make sure that linear progression is believable. Essentially, you don't want to watch the film and say, "Hey, this guy seems more out of it in an earlier scene than in a later scene." Pacino achieves it all, and his turn as Will Dormer is an honor to witness. And then there's Robin Williams.

Robin Williams was a comedy master - no doubt about it. And here he is, portraying a murderer, someone very calculating and manipulative, and who may or may not have had an intimate relationship with the deceased. These are some disturbing subject matters that Williams deals with in this role. On top of that, you're tricked into empathizing and possibly rooting for the guy. What works for Williams is that he uses the audience's experience with his comedy roles to his advantage, to play them in a way. He is playing someone truly sinister here, but he uses that friendly persona the audience knows so well to fool them into thinking he might be decent, only to come out as that vile person in the end.

Dormer and Finch's story could appear to be a tale of two evils, but Nolan uses their dynamic to create one of his more inspirational messages with the "let the truth be known" ending. Acceptance of their actions is the commonality, the theme, between the two men, but where Finch refuses to accept reality and responsibility, Dormer is prepared to die with the world knowing the truth, even at the risk of his own reputation. 

The true trick of "Insomnia" is it makes you believe you suffer from insomnia and, like Dormer, don't know what's real. At first, you believe that Dormer accidentally shot his partner because that's how it's presented, but given how Dormer reacts to this, perhaps it wasn't an accident. At first, you think that Finch dies after he is shot and falls into the water, but given how long Dormer focuses on his sinking body, maybe Finch survived and waited for the perfect opportunity to escape out of his sight. It's the ambiguity on certain details that create multiple interpretations of the characters' perspectives and that make "Insomnia" the true signal of all the great things to come from Nolan.

"Batman Begins"

Think about superhero films both past and present. Of all those superhero films, which of them look and feel like "Batman Begins?" Yes, many have tried to replicate its success, but it is without question that there will only be one "Batman Begins." I have often considered Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy to be one giant movie told across three individual parts - "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy of superhero films, I refer to it as. Though that statement may ring true narratively, stylistically, repeat viewings of this film have taught me otherwise as Nolan's three Batman films could not look and feel more different from each other. "Batman Begins" has the most distinct look of the trilogy. It was the only one in the trilogy that didn't have chunks of it filmed in IMAX and also is the only one with Batman's name in the title. Where the other two installments have that heightened blockbuster feel, "Batman Begins" feels like Nolan is still operating as an up-and-coming filmmaker. While I regard "The Dark Knight" and "The Dark Knight Rises" very highly, were I to choose a favorite of the trilogy, "Batman Begins" would receive my vote.

The origin story is now played out, and there's a good argument against making a Batman origin story as the character's lack of a history would take away the mystique surrounding him. There were snippets of Batman's origin across various interpretations and forms of media prior, but Nolan was the first to chronicle one on the silver screen in full. Using his non-linear storytelling tendencies, Nolan wrote a story of interweaving past and present character moments to give audiences an understanding of who Bruce Wayne is and what his motives for taking on the alternate identity of Batman are. That Wayne's journey affects the origins of characters like James Gordon are nice details about "Batman Begins." Wayne endures and because he endures, others near him are affected, positively or negatively.

"Batman Begins" is about fear, what fears plague the individual characters, and how fear affects them. What will characters do in the face of fear? Will they embrace it, confront it or crack under it? Everyone is afraid in this film, from Bruce Wayne to his father's old business partner, William Earle. Given this, Nolan opts to present the story in a manner to reflect the theme of fear. In the deep underbelly of Gotham, the Narrows, brown, the color of Scarecrow's mask, is prevalent. The use of the color is always used to emphasize fear. Moreover, rather than having long, clean camera shots for the action, it is presented very kinetically, with rapid editing cuts to highlight the terror and/or suspense. Unlike even the Jason Bourne films, this is not the go-to throughout the film. There are long, clean takes, courtesy of Wally Pfister's Oscar-nominated cinematography, and then there's the more frantic style for the more tense parts. When characters overcome fear, the frames last longer, at least comparatively-speaking.

"Batman Begins" popularized, if not invented the approach of taking preposterous source material and making the logic behind it make as much sense as possible. Not that everything can and does have basis in reality - Nolan allows for some preposterousness - but that he tries so hard to give believable origins and reasons behind Batman's tech and the Batcave is part of the fun of the film. That they have origins in the reality makes this Gotham City that Nolan creates, an amalgamation of real world locations and hand-crafted miniatures, a real place for viewers, allowing them to be more emotionally invested in a comic book film than they ever have been.

These contributions that Nolan made have become part of the Bruce Wayne/Batman character. Since "Batman Begins," no incarnation has done anything to diverge from the direction Nolan set him on. It's not that it's the "darker, grittier, more realistic" approach. Such a description is so short-sided, it's an oversimplification of the true transformation that this character experienced under his stewardship. Even though it is based on an IP and is the first of a trilogy, "Batman Begins" is a refreshing tale, one all its own, being completely guided by a filmmaker with full intent, and finding itself as a trailblazer for which many films would attempt to follow.

"The Prestige"

The story of two magicians, once partners, attempting to outclass the other's skills is a compelling concept indeed. Led by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, featuring immersive production design, and wondrous effects, "The Prestige" is a good film that also happens to be my least favorite of Christopher Nolan's filmography.

Where all of Christopher Nolan's films feel like their own thing, "The Prestige" is the one exception. Like "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" or "Antz" and "A Bug's Life" and many other cases before it, "The Prestige" was only one of two films in 2006 that were about increasingly escalating feats of magic, that also features twists and turns as well as an intense amount of atmosphere. Though through no fault of its own, my mind can't help drawing unfavorable comparisons to Neil Burger's "The Illusionist." Both films are about magicians motivated by revenge and love and both films detail the tricks of the trade and how their greatest tricks can break the world's understanding of reality. The two films are not exactly alike, but while I usually prefer Nolan's distinctive style, because "The Illusionist" came first and uses similar narrative routes, the reveals in "The Prestige" that seek to amaze and baffle do not hit as hard. The "Wow!" factor that Nolan wants me to feel isn't there.

Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, who sports his natural accent in this Nolan film, sell the mean-spiritedness between them, and the tragedy behind it. They make you believe the two could be great friends were it not for the nasty incident that tarnishes their relationship forever. "The Prestige" is all about the self-destructive nature of art if produced for the wrong reasons. Jackman and Bale's characters find themselves locked in an unending competition for the title of top magician, always trying to outperform and even sabotage the other's work. The out-of-sequence narrative device is used to emphasize their obsession with beating each other. It intentionally presents itself as confusing at the start, but pulls back the curtain slowly yet surely as the film dives into the secrets the two men harbor within themselves.

The period setting mixed with the fantastical tricks gives "The Prestige" its own flavor of Nolan film. Wally Pfister's camerawork, much like "Insomnia" and "Batman Begins," helps elevate this otherwise smaller story to a whole broader stage, highlighting the central performances and the production design. That the twist is given away in the opening shot and you are completely oblivious to it until after the film's conclusion is that special kind of Nolan spell that he casts so well.

"The Prestige" being all about the extreme hatred and competition between Jackman and Bale's characters, while compelling, doesn't make for the most uplifting watch. Nolan has consistently used darkness or intensity to emphasize the brighter, hopeful elements of his stories. Most of his films have that contrast, but "The Prestige" is like "Memento" in that it is well-made, but is centered on terrible people and thus the more virtuous elements are not as prevalent. Considering all that, though it isn't dull in the slightest, it might be the only Nolan film I don't revisit so much.

"The Dark Knight"

There is Christopher Nolan before "The Dark Knight" and there is Christopher Nolan after "The Dark Knight." Nolan before "The Dark Knight" was one of those filmmakers who bordered on being mainstream while never crossing into it. His most successful film at the time was "Batman Begins" and although that was based on an IP, it only made $374.6 million. He was known, mind you, but not known at the level he would be after "The Dark Knight," which propelled him to the next level of his career.

In terms of narrative construction, "The Dark Knight" is Nolan's simplest film. It does not play with the timeline of its events, it doesn't even have any flashbacks. Where the complexity comes in are the thematic concepts and characters in play. The nature of the plot pertains to escalation, so where you usually have to worry about multiple levels of time-toyed structures, this one challenges you to find relief because it puts you on a non-stop edge, making you wonder how tensions could possibly get more high.

Growing up, I had always heard "The Dark Knight" referred to as the greatest superhero film there ever was, but I never watched it until nearly a decade after its release. It was always because of Heath Ledger's Joker. The very appearance of the character scared the heck out of me. I looked at him as though he was the close relative of Pennywise, like he's going to leap at the screen and snatch me away at any moment. So it took time for me to warm up to this film, to get to the point where I was ready to watch it. I have memories of watching "Batman Begins" from a relatively early age, but "The Dark Knight" took some time for me to get to. To my memory, I had already seen most of "The Dark Knight Rises" by that point.

What's always encouraged me to pursue filmmaking is my desire to tell stories that represent who I am and what I believe. By my very nature, I value ethical behavior and moral choices and I often think about how those traits I possess could help me create stories about those qualities. With this film, from first viewing, it's inspired me, which is curious considering how much I have heard the opposite point-of-view. I find "The Dark Knight" to be a mature film, not a dark film. There is a fine distinction, but a dark film, for it to be its main adjective, has every single element fed into its general approach. "The Dark Knight" is not consistent on that front. Rather, it is a mature film, as in it presents darkness with an equal amount of hope and optimism, trusting audiences to make determinations on its final note based on their own personalities.

The line the Joker gives to Batman about Batman completing him is indicative of the film at large. The presence of one strengthens the other. Without hopefulness and light, one cannot know darkness and despair. Without darkness and despair, one cannot know hopefulness and light. Batman is that light and the Joker is that darkness. Their clash is very much the immovable object meets the unstoppable force, making "The Dark Knight" a tale of good and evil at a grand level. It dares to portray what happens to the world when evil threatens good. Do we descend and be like unto that evil or do we step up to the plate and defend good? There is a richness to this film's portrayal of that conflict that will last forever. Yes, it's well-made and all, but a well-made film isn't all it takes to be great. What message or theme is that high level of craft used to support? What does it encourage? And it's that clear and firm sense of purpose and goodness that makes "The Dark Knight" one of the greats.

"Inception"

Ah, yes, the film that popularized the "BWAH" sound effect for the years that followed. Of Nolan's filmography, "Inception" has greatly improved in my mind over time. I didn't think much of it at first, but as I have continued to study film in the years since, it has become one of my favorites of Nolan's works.

From it's concept alone, "Inception" is a Christopher Nolan film through and through. It's a story about a team of thieves who are able to steal information by breaking into their target's subconscious. If that does not scream Nolan, nothing else will. Nolan's scripts are always a treat - he is a wordsmith, no doubt - but as someone who found a short-form script troublesome to distill in school, I cannot fathom having to breakdown one that includes multiple locations, stages of narrative progression, and character development that is so reliant on visuals and the actors' performances. And yet, although I am sure the opposite is true, Nolan does it with the appearance of absolute confidence.

With "Inception" mainly set in a series of dreams, the trick of the film is having the dream stages all feel tangible. The settings are apartment rooms, hotel hallways, and city streets. They are not the most fantastical locations, which allows Nolan to maintain his in-camera photography goals and also visually tells the story of both Leonardo DiCaprio's Cobb and Cillian Murphy's Fischer. Each stage allows you to see how the presence of the two influence the dream world where the threats and dangers are extensions of themselves and not simply cannon fodder for the main characters. DiCaprio and Murphy are the standouts of the cast, but then Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Elliot Page, and Ken Watanabe aren't slouches either. Their roles lend to the heist feel of the film, mixing the ordinary concept of a heist with the elevated stage of the dream.

The characters' collective input in building the dream world puts a bigger emphasis on the production design. When you pay close attention to how these sets and locations are shot, details about each of the characters are found. Yes, Cobb and Fischer are the central characters because their journeys are at the forefront of narrative focus. And though Arthur, Eames, Ariadne, and Saito aren't explicitly delved into, they are developed through their construction of the dream world and their interaction with it. In that sense, this is where Nolan shows his craft beyond the script for an extended period of time. In addition to writing and directing the actors, he also showcases smaller elements of the frame to build his characters, which is true of the films that follow "Inception."

Musically, "Inception" is rather exceptional. It marks Hans Zimmer's first solo collaboration with Nolan as James Newton Howard worked with him on Nolan's first two Batman films. Zimmer creates music for a place that only exists in one's mind. How do you do that, especially musically? There are numerous possibilities and what Zimmer does is he uses the orchestra and his growing, percussive style to create not so much the world, but the possibility of the world. It is defining the dream by not defining the dream, by allowing the music to take on whatever feelings or context the audience feels through the attached visuals. Zimmer could imagine the dream to be more a frightful place, hence the "BWAH" cues placed throughout the score. It could be a situation where he makes the audience question which is more dangerous: the real world or the dream? And that wondering is true all the way through till the ending, which is a question in and of itself. The certainties are there, there is a resolution, and yet you're left wondering how everything goes, questioning if the ending means one thing or another, but the music, like the film, supports both the certainty and the uncertainty.

"The Dark Knight Rises"

Even with critical acclaim and the distinction of being Nolan's highest-grossing film, "The Dark Knight Rises" feels like one of Nolan's least-regarded works today. With a four-year wait and the last film being put on such a pedestal, from my outsider perspective, it seemed like people had built up this film so much in their minds that reality would have never been able to compete with their imaginations. Nolan could have done anything - and I mean ANYTHING - and nothing would have satisfied because audiences make for themselves a check-list of what the film must do. Every time a box isn't checked, they are mentally striking points off as they're consuming the thing. Looking at it that way, it is no wonder why viewers go on and on about the "plot holes" and the "unexplained" because they're watching the film like a hawk. It's not a question of whether the film has flaws, it's a question of if you're so engrossed by the film that you don't see the strings in the puppet show. And, for many, they denied themselves the puppet show altogether.

As the conclusion of this trilogy, "Rises" uses the consequences of its predecessors - the death of Ra's Al Ghul and the lie built around Harvey Dent - to bring Bruce Wayne to his lowest point. Throughout the trilogy, he's been afraid, aimless, and uncertain about the threats plaguing Gotham, but "Rises" finds him at his most broken, and that's even before Bane cripples him.

For the first-half of the film, Wayne is robbed of all his support systems, everything he uses to keep himself from facing his demons. Alfred leaves, he loses his fortune, and he's driven back to Batman only because he believes it to be the only thing he has left, which ends with Bane dealing him a crippling blow and tossing him in the prison pit. It's no coincidence that the prison he's cast in is similar to the hole he fell in as a child. Nolan both visually and scripturally shows that Bruce, for all his highest highs in the trilogy, has always turned to outside sources to escape his fears, manifesting themselves as the pit he finds himself in. Batman was his way to escape his guilt over his parents' deaths, Rachel was his way to escape being alone, and Harvey Dent was his way to leave Batman behind. For Bruce, all these things have been his "rope," his way out of escaping his fear as opposed to confronting them head on. To escape the pit, he has to let go of the "rope" and embrace his worst fears, building to this moment of sheer thrill and relief when he finally climbs out, when he rises.

In addition to bringing the larger story of Bruce Wayne/Batman to a close, "The Dark Knight Rises" gives the other veteran cast members their proper closure while giving mini-arcs to these new additions, primarily Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Detective Blake. All these characters' experiences intertwine so nicely, allowing the film's extended runtime to feel reasonably quick and concise. The sound mix throughout the trilogy has always played a key role, but "Rises" is where it's in its best form. Nolan knows where to use sound, when not to use sound, and the right amount of volume at which to have it play. It blends so well with Hans Zimmer's musical score to the point where it extends into more areas than you realize. With Zimmer composing solo, although James Newton Howard's absence is noticeable in the totality of the score, the score of "Rises" is the trilogy's strongest due to how the music is applied and its connotations, which are overwhelmingly positive and uplifting.

"The Dark Knight Rises" is where Nolan gives his most conclusive ending, which is rather unique from him. With many of his films, you're left to imagine for yourself what happened next. There are always these open-to-interpretation endings that arise in response to what happens in these plots. Which isn't to say "The Dark Knight Rises" doesn't have open-ended elements to it, but what questions there are are few in number and rather insignificant as Nolan ends his trilogy in a decidedly definitive manner, sticking to what this trilogy has been about. There isn't much mystery as to the fate of Bruce Wayne and that "Rises" ends in a way that's earned within the context of the larger story makes it a deeply satisfying finale.

"Interstellar"

"Interstellar" was the film that sparked my current adoration of Christopher Nolan. It was one of the first times where I watched a film being so impressed with its assembly and how it amplified the emotional center of its story. I count it as an important film not only for how it helped develop me as a critical thinker, but as an individual in general.

Though this may sound hyperbolic, I credit this film with challenging my younger self and the perception of life I had at the time. Although I grew up having different experiences in my life, at the time I watched this, I had not yet understood the full idea of life and the beauty of it. And this sounds strange as I am someone who was, at one point, close to death on a regular basis. My first viewing of this film happened around the start of my teenage years, the point at which I became hyper-aware of my life, including what I have to look forward to both in this life and the life to come. All this culminated in a devastating first viewing that changed me deeply.

Even today, many times while watching "Interstellar," I am rocked to my core by the journey of Matthew McConaughey's Cooper, his growing understanding of life's true center and where focus should be most applied. There are so many moments that break me because of how McConaughey successfully captures the tragedies and anxieties pertaining to his family, how his children surpass his own age and how the realizations of his mistakes break him. The most gut-wrenching, tear-jerking moment of any film I have watched is the scene where Cooper is trapped in the singularity and all he is able to do is watch his past self leave his daughter, unable to keep himself from leaving home in spite of his pleading. My own personal hell is not of any physical pain or torment, but one that involves me reliving all the mistakes of my life, unable to change a single thing about it and knowing where it got me. That scene realizes a version of that hell for me and recognizing it back then taught me much about how film has the ability to connect to someone and how far it can reach into their soul.

And that's what "Interstellar" does. It digs into what makes you a human being, presenting you a mirror of the world and of humanity and challenges you on why you do what you do. What is your ambition? Why do you have that ambition? Is that ambition really what you want from life? All these questions are tested with McConaughey's Cooper, who goes through this film trying to find these answers. And the curious thing is, even when he thinks he has the answer, the truth appears as being a little less obvious. Such a human thing, to believe that you're destined for something greater, then to believe it's something more common, and then to find it's a mix of both. It's not a beatific affair either. There are real consequences, losses of what might have been, but knowledge that you can still find something, even if you can't go back to what you originally wanted.

It's this deeper connection that distinguishes "Interstellar" among Nolan's filmography for me. It, like his other films, has a star-studded cast, a spiritual musical score, toys with time and space within the narrative, and has details to the nth degree. All great things, to be sure, and they are not to be undersold. But the powerful emotional center is what keeps me coming back. It reminds me of what I want out of life and has the resolve to stick with its ideas to the very end.

"Dunkirk"

At this point, post-Batman Nolan specializes in making unconventional blockbusters. If The Dark Knight Trilogy was Nolan raising audience standards using a beloved IP, his films following are attempts to raise audience standards without an IP, challenging them to be more open about what a summer blockbuster can be. Does it have to be tied to an IP or can it be something different and more experimental? The response to "Dunkirk" indicates a yes.

In "Dunkirk," Nolan adds his own spin to the war film, picking a more obscure event in World War II and being as faithful as possible in depicting the Allied soldiers' struggle to evacuate Dunkirk during that late-May, early-June 1940 time frame. "Dunkirk" has characters, themes, and a narrative structure that suits his M.O. The story, as Nolan likes to do, is broken into three different timelines across three places: the land, the sea, and the air. When everything comes together, there is a real sense of victory that Nolan wants you to feel. Not victory over someone else, but victory for humanity and their capacity for goodness. The civilians coming to the Allies' aid lands so much more with the separate timelines and settings being so spread out at first and then coming together at the end. Unlike Nolan's other films, "Dunkirk" isn't focused so much on character. Although many name actors populate the film and are very good, the soldiers are treated as more of a collective such that this one group of men the film follows on the Mole are representing the feelings and attitudes of many of the other soldiers.

The solemnity of the proceedings, the limited dialogue, and shorter runtime work in the film's favor. And the film is so effective in its assembly that, nowadays, this once-footnote of an event in history is now common knowledge amongst the general public. It's so well-done that it's disappointing to experience the film at home now. "Dunkirk" is one of those films that should make a frequent return to multiplexes a few times every couple years because to truly experience the film, you need to be in that 70mm IMAX theater, hearing those gunshots and explosions go off, making you feel like you are with those soldiers. If not impossible to do, it is very difficult to replicate that same experience at home.

So, yes, while "Dunkirk" is a great film from Nolan, there is an element of loss watching it now. And that can't be helped because if anyone could get the same level of experience from a theater at home, nobody would go to the theater anymore. It's not the film's fault, but that it is reliant on more theatrical-related components, it ranks behind some of his other films, films that are big-screen powerhouses but also feature more character and narrative richness to it.

"Tenet"

And now we've come to Nolan's most recent film. When accessing his filmography from "Following" to "Tenet," you grow to see and appreciate the journey in Nolan's development as a director in his films. "Following" and "Tenet" are at opposite ends of a line. They feel so different from each other and yet they are such kindred spirits. If "Following" was Nolan doing what he wanted with a limited budget, "Tenet" is Nolan unleashed at full capacity. The result being a film that contains all the things Nolan has excelled at for years, plus all the things he's continuing to experiment with.

Nolan is always pushing the line of creative ideas, thinking of what can be turned into a great story and, well, "Tenet" definitely has a doozy of a concept. Time travel will never not be hard to understand. There will always be something about it that is hard to explain, so rather than rely on the logic to sell it, Nolan entrusts it to the actors and their performances. Thankfully, each actor, from a lead to an extra, gives their all with the most amount of conviction possible, making the audience believe in Inversion simply by believing in it themselves so strongly.

John David Washington as The Protagonist is dropped right into an underground world he does not understand, which instantly creates a connection between him and the audience. And then having his charismatic side, be it a witty remark or his interactions with Neil and Sir Michael Crosby, serve as a balance to his colder, all-business side makes for a winning lead character. The secret ingredient in the character's success is how he's always doing things on the fly. Even when it seems he has a purpose behind what he's doing, he doesn't understand anything but what he controls, which plays into the through line of the film.

Washington and Robert Pattinson blend the presentational and representational acting styles to create characters that feel true to the world of espionage and yet make those qualities feel grand. It's the elevation of ordinary attitudes and mindsets that Nolan has done since the beginning that is still going strong today. The main duo do a twist on the buddy cop formula, trading in the bickering and snide remarks with heightened sincerity and gravitas, subverting audiences' perception of what male heroes should be. They have fun with each other, but they don't go down the route that many other duos have done in action films and thrillers. Most of all, their behavior is rooted in adaptation to the setting, making their chemistry feel natural and not forced.

"Tenet," in a very unconventional way, reflects a real-life problem using the Inversion element. That is, the existence of an unknown and the fear of it. All of the characters don't fully understand everything about the world, but the distinction between who's "good" and who's "bad" - the film doesn't play this as binary as how I'm summarizing it - is their reaction to there being an opportunity to understand the unknown in Inversion. Are they accepting of the unknown or are they constantly trying to understand it via Inversion? The line that Clémence Poésy's character has in the film, "Don't try to understand it. Feel it," is indicative of how to navigate a future that appears controllable, yet is still variable. For the main duo to prevent armageddon, they require a considerable amount of faith, which some have more of than others. Take the villain, Andrei Sator, who is always trying to control what he can't because he does not live life on trust and faith and thus always has to rely on some form of leverage or advantage.

Where "Tenet" falters a tad is how Nolan mixes the optimism and harshness this time around. Kenneth Branagh acts correctly as Sator. The actor, as directed, behaves as the most vile, evil human being that he can be. Such talent, however, does make his sequences with Elizabeth Debicki's Kat hard to watch, given that Sator acts reprehensibly towards his estranged wife. This is in service of setting up Kat's defeat of him, and although it is rewarding to watch her come into her own, it doesn't make watching Sator abuse her any easier to witness. And that the harshness is not the main feeling taken from "Tenet" speaks to how minor it is and how the film leans toward hopefulness in the end.

In a year where I faced a whole host of personal uncertainties, having "Tenet" come out and be all about dealing with things you can't control helped motivate me personally, which is the main reason I watched it five times in the cinemas, the most amount of times I have ever seen a film in the cinemas. Because on top of the cinematography, the music, and the action dynamics, Nolan is still making films that connect to me deeply through the stories he tells.

Conclusion

Christopher Nolan style of filmmaking, in a way, gets me out of bed in the morning as a film student and filmmaker. Making something with this amount of care and detail, telling human stories about morality and optimism in the face of terror, and having characters who overcome past demons to make a better life for themselves and/or those around them has and will continue to be one of my motivators. The themes and messages he tells are ideas I want to emulate in what I create for the next generation of audiences. Of course, I cannot hope to become exactly like Christopher Nolan, nor do I wish to be like him. I want to and will do what feels the most like me, but I can say that Nolan has affected me these past many years to be bold, to challenge the audience, to try and make something with the most amount of intelligence and passion I can invest in it. More often than not, he has reached into the deepest parts of my soul and helped me to think about the world in a new way and to understand myself better. Just as he did that for me, I can only hope to do that for someone else with the films that I will produce.

This has been my overview on Christopher Nolan's filmography. What are your views on his films? Are there any details I missed? Share those thoughts in the comments below. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. This is Dallin, your resident film fanatic. Thank you for reading.